Long Live the Queen (The Immortal Empire) (14 page)

I landed in a crouch, the impact hitting my heels and ankles like a slap. Tingled a bit, but other than that I was fine.

A firewoman ran forward to take the girl from me, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders. People milled around me; lights flashed in my stinging eyes. It was so bright, so freaking noisy…

Familiar hands grabbed my shoulders. Val. “Are you all right?” he demanded.

I nodded, blinking back the tears. The cold air was a mercy on my eyes and nose – all my senses, really. And oh, so nice and refreshing. “I’m good.” Smoke came out of my mouth as I spoke.

Suddenly Penny was there too, as the fire brigade went to work. We were shuffled along with the crowd, Val’s presence as a police officer keeping us on the edge. His mates were talking to the crowd. A couple of humans were already in cuffs.

Flashes went off around us, and then there was a film crew. Again. I contemplated moving somewhere that technology didn’t exist. A microphone was shoved in my face.

“And here’s the hero of the night!” the woman shrilled at the camera. “What’s your name, miss?”

I had opened my mouth to say “no comment” when Penny yanked off my hat. “Xandra Vardan,” she crowed. “Goblin queen.”

Fuck.

I’m not sure what I expected, but Vex laughing wasn’t it.

“I’m glad you find this amusing,” I snapped.

He sat sprawled on the large sofa in his study – one arm over the back, legs splayed. Normally I might have crawled in there and straddled his lean hips, but right now I wanted to kick him in the shin. “It’s not funny.”

He grinned at me. “You’re right. It’s fabulous. You did something wonderful today – and the whole world knows it. The big scary goblin queen saved a human’s life, and at risk to your own. You couldn’t have asked for better publicity if you paid for it.”

“It felt like it was just handed to me.” I plopped down on the sofa beside him. “It was the kind of thing you’d see on the box. I just happened to be in the area at the right time.”

He patted my thigh. “Your inability to avoid trouble came in handy.”

Our gazes met, and I couldn’t help but laugh. I leaned my head back. At least I didn’t smell like smoke – I’d showered and changed before I came over. “It was pretty brilliant, wasn’t it?”

“When Penny pulled off your hat and outed you, I thought you were going to eat someone’s spleen. Do you want to see the look on your face? Because I recorded it.”

I glanced at him. “Really?”

“Really.” He was still smiling. God, he was gorgeous. “You just accidentally did more for the aristocratic race than Bertie and his whole campaign for peace has done in the last six months. It could have gone badly, but Christ, I don’t see how it could have gone any better.”

We sat there quietly for a moment, smiling.

“Are your halfies okay?” I asked.

“They seem to be. I ordered blood work just in case. It’s doubtful they’ll get sick.” The plague in their blood gave them
some resistance, but the human part of them was still vulnerable.

“Do you trust Bertie?” I asked after a moment of silence, returning to our former topic.

Vex propped his arm on the back of the sofa and braced his head with his hand. “With my life? No. To give me the name of a decent tailor, yes. What are you asking me exactly, love?”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure. He sort of came out of nowhere, didn’t he?”

Vex frowned. “No, not really. He’s followed in his father’s path for years, but the last decade or so he’s spent most of his time in Russia with his sister, and in France. He’s always been something of a diplomat. Spent some time in the Americas as well. Though he has been a bit high-profile since his return.”

This was where my youth was a disadvantage. I didn’t have history with these people, hadn’t had the benefit of knowing them for decades – or a century.

“I don’t know him. I need a liaison with the vampires that I know.”

“Why do you need a liaison with the vampires?”

“It’s us against them, isn’t it? If we’re not united against humanity, we’re screwed. I know you and William. And while I’m surprised by my mother’s sudden public revelations, I feel that I know her as well. I don’t know Bertie.”

“Vardan’s the one who handles most of the political goings-on while Bertie’s away.”

My father. Of course. I’d meant to see him anyway, but hadn’t had the opportunity. He was the one vampire I reckoned I could trust when so many of them seemed to be in league with the labs. There weren’t that many vampires in London,
for God’s sake. Maybe they were all rotten. “I always thought Church was higher in the ranks.”

“Churchill had his uses.” That cryptic remark was so dry, sand fell from my wolf’s lips. “But he was half American, and that made him an outsider.”

It wasn’t such a big deal now, but back when Church had been born, it was a scandal. His mother was not only from America and “new money”, but there was talk that she’d been pregnant when she married Church’s father.

Well, I supposed back then if you were going to marry an American heiress you had to know beforehand that she could carry an aristo child. Turned out that Church’s mum was full-blooded, a fact she’d hidden from American society. She infused fresh blood into the aristocracy.

But it was American blood. New blood.

And that was what had made Church so eager to prove himself. And why he’d got involved with the labs and experiments. My father claimed not to have known anything about them, and I believed him. He hadn’t faked his anguish at finding out his wife was involved. He might have been aware of things, but he hadn’t been included, and that was enough reason to trust him right there. If he wasn’t trusted by those bastards in the vampire ranks, then he was good enough for me.

“I’m going to go and see him,” I announced. “I want him involved.”

Vex arched a brow. “You’re going to step on Bertie’s toes.”

“Bertie doesn’t know me any more than I know him. And he certainly doesn’t know what’s been going on in this country for the last decade. My father does, and no one’s going to think it odd for me to want my daddy at my side.” Well, someone who didn’t know me wouldn’t think it was odd.

“You really want him involved?”

No.
I nodded. “I feel like it’s the right thing.” That was true – as much as I didn’t like it. “How long before we have to be at the palace?”

Vex checked his pocket watch. “Hour and a half.”

“Plenty of time to pop by Vardan’s.”

A long, strong finger hooked itself into the waistband of my skirt and tugged. Smiling, I let myself be pulled in close. Vex smelled like sweetness and spice to me – exotic and delicious. He was absolutely the best man I’d ever known. I respected him, and I didn’t respect too many people.

He liked me for who I was, faults and all.

I rose and swung my leg over his lap, straddling him like I’d thought about a little earlier. When he touched me, I sighed and gave myself over to him completely, lowering my head to his to lose myself in his kiss. After the craziness of the day, this was the first thing that felt real and worth hanging on to. This was what really mattered.

So I didn’t care that I’d have less than an hour to get to my father’s and then to the palace afterwards. My father, the Queen and the entire bloody country could wait.

My father was a top-shelf bastard, but he was still my father, and right now he had a more sympathetic light cast on him than my mother. Though that wasn’t saying much.

I couldn’t turn on the box or pick up a rag without seeing my mother’s angelic face grinning back at me. And in every interview she mentioned me, how she’d been forced to have me. It was as though she was trying to grab the title of being the first laboratory for aristo experiments, which wasn’t true.

I understood my mother’s dislike of aristos. But for years she’d carried on her fight out of the spotlight, and now that she’d stepped it up, I didn’t like her using me – or those poor pathetic creatures I’d seen in the cellar of Bedlam – as a marketing tool. Those battered halfies deserved better, and there she was chatting about the work they were doing in Bedlam to help them.

She hadn’t been part of my life for more than a decade, and she could have been. She’d secretly recruited Dede, but ignored me until I became news, and that stung. We were a platform for her now, and she was standing on my fucking face.

Even Vardan treated me better than that.

I’d realised years ago that aristo men often viewed their children by courtesans as both shameful and a sign of potency, which was terribly important to a race that had a hard time flourishing. But courtesans weren’t the only ones that could breed with them; halfies could too. My sister Dede had given birth to a full-blooded child that was being raised by the father and his wife to protect it from being poked and prodded like the rest of us who were “different”.

My father used that same defence against me – that he only wanted to protect me. Right. Maybe there was some truth to it.

My father’s house was a typical Mayfair great house. It had been built in the 1700s by his great-great-grandfather. Originally my ancestor had had to rent the land he built on, as it was part of a privately owned parcel. All that changed after the Great Insurrection, when the Crown seized the land, declaring it a sanctuary for aristocrats.

Luckily the Vardan Mayfair estate had received only superficial damage during that horrific night when many aristocratic lines ended for ever. There were still scorch marks on some of the outside stones – reminders that my father chose to retain rather than conceal or destroy.

I was shown to my father’s study. He’d redecorated since my last visit. It did seem manlier, with heavier furniture, plush and comfortable, a more understated carpet, and richly coloured Pre-Raphaelite paintings. The duchess’s influence was gone.

He rose from behind the desk when I was shown in. He stubbed out a cigar and came around to greet me. “Xandra. It is so wonderful to see you.”

He sounded sincere, but it was hard to tell. He was such a
very
good liar, and the last time we’d had any sort of one-onone time, we’d said some awful things. Well, if I was fair, most of the awfulness came from me. I’d reached the point where I was ready to kill him. I wasn’t certain that urge had completely passed.

“Hello, Vardan.” He kissed both my cheeks. “You look well.” That wasn’t a lie – not really. He did look much better than he had shortly after the funeral. Losing Dede, Val’s abduction, my own drama and the duchess’s murder had taken a toll on him.

“I feel well, thank you.” He took a step back, hands curved around my shoulders. “You are the very picture of health and vitality. Look at you! Your skin positively glows. What’s your secret?”

“Clean living,” I replied drily, to which he chuckled. Actually, I had a feeling my improved looks had more to do with being a goblin than anything else. Maybe beneath all that fur, goblins had perfect skin.

“Sit, sit.” He gestured towards the sofa. “Would you like tea?”

“No thank you.”

“Ah.” His expression changed to one of disappointment as he sat on the chair closest to me. “This is not a social call.”

I was a horrible daughter. “Not entirely, no. But first, how are you getting on?” It wouldn’t hurt me to wait a little longer to mention the favour I needed.

He went on to tell me about the things he was doing to
occupy his time and his mind. The more he talked, the more animated he became, and the more guilty I grew. He was a lonely, regretful man.

Life would be so much easier if people weren’t complicated. If I could just be a monster and my father could just be a bastard, everything would be as it should. Dede might still be alive if she’d been simply the fragile little waif everyone believed.

Someday it might not hurt to think of her. She had deserved so much more than this world. Dramatic, but true. She’d been conceived to be a servant to the aristocrats, bred for specific skills and trained to protect. She hadn’t had a choice – none of us had, not really.

“I saw your mother on the box,” Vardan said, filling the silence.

I couldn’t hide my surprise. “You have a box?”

He chuckled and nodded. “I’m not a complete Luddite.” His mirth faded. “I was a little surprised by how much she still hates me after all these years.”

I spoke before thinking. “I don’t think she hates you nearly as much as she loves the attention saying so gets her.”

“Fair enough.” A smile lingered on his lips. “I saw you on the box too. Well done with the rescue. You’re setting yourself up as quite a champion for humankind.”

I made a face. Was he mocking me? “Hardly.” I hated that I was all over the news – again. “I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Tilting his head, he watched me carefully. No, he wasn’t taking the piss. “You saved a life.”

“It looked like a bloody public-relations bid.” The only thing worse than the country thinking I was a human-lover was
the country thinking I
wanted
it to think of me as a human-lover.

“Ah.” He crossed his legs. “I see. Don’t want to look like a defector?”